A/N: Hey everyone. Welcome to ASFW the edited repost. For those who have read the rest of my story and are looking for the final chapters and epilogue, link to my author's profile and the story is still there, I didn't delete it. For those of you who are just starting, and are getting ideas…..lol jj, don't go and read the version of it that is already fully posted. One, b/c the copy that's already on there is not as good (hence, 'edited repost'). And two, my story is written in four parts, almost separate stories, and Part II is not posted!!! So, if you wait and read as I post you will get a much higher quality story and you will get all of it…haha…doesn't that sound better?
Anyway, I hope you like my story. Oh, just one more thing, I write in multiple first person, so I use first person, but from different people's perspectives. Don't worry, I separated them with horizontal lines, and the person who point of view it's from is between the lines.
Thanks for reading,
Natasha
1
Natalia Gerdou
Darkness came early for the end of a hot Australian spring day. A forbidding feeling fell over me as I took the long way home from school. Low hanging branches hung inches from my head as I walked carefully among their holders. Leaning against a trunk, I stared towards the horizon as the last shards of light danced across it, and lit streaks in my long raven hair. For a moment, the world seemed like a peaceful place, but I knew that was only a mirage. This world had never been peaceful, and never would be, for that would be a world with no need for me, and there would always be a need for those like me.
Suddenly, violet eyes wide, I stared east. A light in the sky catching my attention.
A plane? No. I shook my head. Fool.
I had reason to be paranoid. The wars of the millennium may be on hold momentarily- the world in the hands of the politicians- but that did not stop all the violence. A foreign terrorist group had been dropping planes on metropolis in Australia. Thousands of lives, one of them my mother's, had been lost in those raids. I knew their country's government was involved; I knew too much, but they were denying all accusations, and that left Australia helpless to counterattack. No one was going to stand up to their government now, not after the years gone Iraqi incident. Australia had so many years of peace, the people were not ready for a full blown war, especially not with a superpower such as that. The country would be crushed. I knew, because even at the age of 17, I had seen too much of the horrors of war throughout the world.
Paranoia, that's all it brought, and fear. I have felt their grasp, for months on end, but it was my own fault, I entered my family's profession on my own will.
Natalia Gerdou, a name few will ever call me, but a name that binds me to this life. You see, my father, brother and I are mercenaries, along with the rest of my extended family. I've been in the field for four years. I've survived the game longer than most mercenaries out there these days, and there was no shortage of work these day or of mercenaries to do it.
Footsteps behind me brought me out of my deep thinking. I knew who it was, so I thought nothing of it. Suddenly-whack-I was tackled from behind and went sprawling on my stomach. Tasting grass, I climbed to my feet. Jumping to his feet, my attacker stared me down.
"Argh, I'll get you for that, Gregory!" I yelled as he took off down the path, me at his heels.
I caught the laughing 18-year-old American not 20 meters down the path and tackled him at the bare knees. We both hit the grass and he kept on rolling until he rolled, butt first, into the nearest tree trunk.
Stumbling to my feet, I was laughing so hard I nearly fell down again. I stood by his feet, bent over, one hand on my knees steadying myself.
"Come on Drew, I know kindergarteners that tackle better than that," I cackled as I offered my hand.
Latching onto my arm just below my elbow, he gave one quick jerk and sent me flying over his head. I landed on my back, dazed, the wind knocked out of me.
Oww…
He rolled backwards and sat flat on my stomach, pinning me to the dark, damp ground.
"Sorry," he smirked, "reflex."
"Oh, really?" I replied, thoughts of revenge already running through my mind.
I brought my knees up into his back, arching his head away from me. I extended my legs, wrapping my heals around his neck. Pulling him off my stomach, I threw him onto his. Before he could react, I had rolled over and sat neatly in the crook of his back, pinning him more securely than he'd had me pinned.
"Sorry," I mimicked, leaning down to whisper in his ear, "reflex."
"Oh yeah, right. I could get out of this any time I wanted to, you can't weigh more than 100 pounds, not an ounce of body fat," he smirked, his smooth voice caressing the evening air like the wind.
"One forty, thank you," I snapped playfully, proud, unlike some women, at the weight my strong, muscular body was at. At 5'10", it wasn't bad by any means.
I slid off his back onto the damp grass, leaving my long legs draped over his waist. He sat up, looking at me inquisitively. We had play fought before, but any type of martial arts had never come into the game. I saw a spark in his eyes; it gave me an unsettling feeling that I got off only my father and his other high status friends. I also, apparently gave off such an aura, a crackling aura of barely withheld energy. I stared at Drew. Drew wasn't a mercenary, not that I knew of, but I didn't claim to know everything, just most things. I had refrained on doing an extensive background check on him, for he was my friend and that would be a serious breach of the trust the two of us had formed. I slapped myself mentally; Drew didn't have the heart, or lack-there-of, to be a contract killer. It was foolishness, or was that just what I wanted to think? There were so many wanna-be assassins floating around with the wars, every Tom, Dick, and Harry wanted in, and presently Australia was the place to be doing it.
Trust no one, suspect everyone.
But I did trust Drew; he was my best friend, my boyfriend, though he didn't know my secret. I was Rika Rose to him. His rose.
I nearly shook my head, for God's sake, he couldn't be.
The possibility made me shudder. I looked away from his hauntingly handsome face, pulling him up off the ground. Leaning against a large tree, he pulled me into his arms, my back against his solid chest. The tall, dark-haired teenager rested his chin on my shoulder.
I held his lean muscular arms tighter around me, banishing the sudden, perhaps imaginary, chill that was in the air.
"Ready for tomorrow's races?" I asked cautiously.
"I could out run those idiots with my eyes closed," he replied. "I bet I could even beat you."
I laughed, "I'll leave you with your delusions, even though it is clear that I would be the victor."
"We'll see."
Drew Macintyre
At the moment, Rika scared me. Never, in the over a year that we'd known each other had she ever shown an affinity towards martial arts. I didn't claim to know everything about my rose, but you'd think I'd know if she had some serious Tae Kwon Do skills. The sensei that instructed me couldn't counter the move I'd done on her that flawlessly. There was something she wasn't telling me, and I didn't like being kept in the dark. There had always been an aura about Rika, something I couldn't quite put a finger on. I needed to think this over.
Straightening, I told her I had to go back to my apartment to get ready for work, gave her a goodbye kiss, and strode off.
Trust no one, suspect everyone.
Assassin's law, threat until proven unwaveringly otherwise. Until a few weeks ago, I thought Rika was simply a civilian, not apart of the life and death game I had associated myself with in the after hours since I was young.
But then, I saw her shoot.
Witnessing that one simple action changed my perspective of her completely. Thank God she was so immersed in what she was doing.
She was there with her brother, Aaron. As she shot, he stood casually beside her in the booth. Between rounds from the other armed customers of the facility, he called targets for her.
"Left eye," he'd call and instantly a hole appeared in the paper target.
The scariest part was when she put ten rounds through the exact same hole without even touching the paper past the first shot.
Perfect form, accuracy, attitude.
Check, check, check.
The traits of a sniper. If I was anywhere else, I would have thought myself foolish but 'the land down under' was the place to be for mercenaries not of the garden variety, like myself. Rika had also moved here right after the raids began, a strange time for a family to move ...
Pieces of the puzzle slip into place, but did Rika work a similar puzzle?
Trust no one suspect everyone.
Hi again. Hope you liked chapter 1... Please review, it would be very nice, especially in the first chapter b/c I'd like to see if there's any interest in the repost. If you have any criticism (in constructive form please) I'd really like to hear it. Another note, my chapters will all be roughly the same length ( plus or minus 800 words or so) and they may not be as long as some other author's chapters, but you must know that I wrote this story in a book format, not to post on the internet, so…well, that's the way it is.
I post at a consistent interval of once a week. So I'll generally post every Friday night (unless there's a big response, for which I'd post faster)
Thank you very much for reading,
Natasha